M.A.S. hub, Trotson
Day 3
I closed my eyes, taking in for the first time in days how it felt to have the wind against my face. It brushed against my body like a blanket, the chill feeling just right under Celestia’s star. The way it hit my wings, the sound it made as I cut through it, everything felt right. It was probably the most right I had felt since getting off that damn train three days ago, and with no vision it was easy to imagine all of it had been a bad dream.
Then I opened my eyes, and was greeted by sand, desolation, and a city trapped in a weather-made bowl. It felt opened and enclosed at the same exact time. In the Enclave it was possible to fly from one city to the other so if you felt you had the stamina for it, the entire sky opened to you. Here that was far less possible, restricted even if it wasn’t the original intent. Sure, you could fly over the sandstorm, but looking at it now made me wonder just how possible that was.
I realized that said sandstorm was larger than I remembered. Had they changed it since that mistake of a mission five years ago? As if the G.P.E. needed more reasons to not come back here.
Still, for all the restrictions, the ability to finally spread my wings after days on the ground felt so nice. It was like finally being able to walk again after a leg injury, without the need for any support. I would enjoy it for all its worth, because I knew the ability to fly without a care like this would be taken away the moment Sharpshot and Gemini were unshackled. Curse grounders and their lack of wings.
Willow led the way before me, remaining quiet for the majority of the flight to the Ministry hub. I could feel in my heart that this search was doomed, but maybe that was the point. Bone Breaker had made it clear she was sending us into death, and perhaps she wanted us to die. It was all too possible she was going to try and kill Sharpshot as well. I had to chuckle at that, because I could tell in only knowing that shit-talking ghoul for a day that wouldn’t go well.
“You wanna know another little thing that I had to do that most alicorns don’t?” Willow asked me. I looked at her, the blank expression seeming to be a yes for her. “The Goddess helps give most other alicorns the knowledge of what they didn’t have before, as well as adjust to their new bodies. I didn’t have luxury, so along with figuring out how magic worked,” her head turned to the left, clearly embarrassed. “I had to learn to fly again.”
“It can’t be that different,” I shouted through the wind. “You still had wings before hoof.”
“Yeah but alicorn Willow isn’t the same body type as pegasus Willow,” She answered. “Try flying when you're suddenly far taller and your wings are larger. Not like a growth spurt, but an entirely different body.”
I had no reference for what Willow was talking about, so I just gave her a nod. My eyes found themselves looking down towards a particular building not far in the distance. A building that seemed in far better condition than nearly all those around it. There were still signs of age on its hulky, steel exterior, but it felt a lot like the projector room back in Alibi Street Cinema.
The MentaBuck didn’t need to tell me its name, I knew what I was looking at. The giant logo of a star with wings behind it was enough. We had reached our destination, the Trotson crater far in the distance from us now. I couldn’t help but find it strange, seeing this building still standing strong while so many others looked to be on their last legs.
Ominous would be the best word to describe it. The building had an aura to it that made me feel incredibly concerned.
“You think the front door will open for us?”
“Probably. From Sharpy’s and I’s experience, these places typically hold their most important stuff in the places no regular pony could touch,” Willow answered, her hooves touching down on the lot just in front of the entrance. I landed right behind her, taking notice of how I needed to actually crane my neck up to look her in the eye. It wasn’t something I had really noticed until just then. “It’s been a while since we’ve entered an M.A.S. building, though. Sharpy tends to avoid these places.”
“He doesn’t like them?”
“Brings back a lot of memories that he tries his best to forget.”
Hooves on the ground, our conversation was pushed to the side as we trotted up to the hub’s main door. We opened it, and were greeted not by decay or rot, but darkness. The dark metal walls and lack of working lights made the sunlight’s effect less useful than back in the cinema or apartment. There was a bit of a chill too, meaning that whatever talisman or machine was keeping this place cool was somehow still running after two hundred years.
Either that, or somepony had bothered to replace it for no reason.
The room itself was large and empty, clearly meant to house more than just two ponies. If the cinema had led our hooves to echo, this place caused them to boom. Darkness would have surrounded us if not for Willow’s hornlight.
“Never thought the day would come where I set a hoof in a place like this,” I whispered, though with the way it too bounced off the wall. I switched my vision to the MentaBucks local map, only to swear under my breath and immediately turn it off. “We’re gonna be shooting in the dark. This damn tech in my brain isn’t gonna help navigate this place.”
“So you aren’t a walking flashlight?” Willow asked. Her words made me pause, and I briefly played around with the MentaBuck. After a bit I shook my head. “Would probably damage your eyesight anyways. For the best.”
We reached the front counter not too long after that exchange. An elevator wasn’t too far behind it, along with a hall to our right. My focus didn’t fall to those, but rather the terminal that was on the other side of the counter. A jump and flap got me over to the other side, Willow choosing to just casually walk around it. I pressed the power button in hopes of it turning on, thinking of the smallest possibility of there being a map on it.
In hindsight, I should have known the chances were zero. While it did turn on, the only thing on it were logs for employees punching in on that final day of civilization, and an entry called “IMPORTANT!” with the caps and all. All the punch-in dates were centuries ago, so I ignored them in favor of whatever was so important that needed to be in all caps.
> With Project Nebula now under way, access to the underground laboratories is off limits for all visitors and family. It shall remain this way until Princess Luna believes our work is ready to show.
Short, simple, and perfectly clear in its intent. Clearly whatever they had been working on was still in some form of infancy when balefire hit Equestria. I looked behind myself to the elevator, confident that what we were looking for wouldn’t be below us. I looked up at the alicorn behind me, and pointed towards the hallway. She gave me a nod, and our focus turned back towards the task we had been given.
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I pedaled back as Willow forced upon a door, the rusted screeching it caused piercing into my very soul. It was necessary in order to take a look inside, but her having to pry open door after door was starting to get to me. There had always been a good collection of noises, some many ponies considered normal, that didn’t sit right with me. Once the horrific screeching was gone, I could feel my heart pounding in my chest. I pleaded hopelessly that it would be the last time we needed to, but I was confident that was nothing but naive hope.
Willow took the lead, only to stumble back as a shifter that had come to call the room home jumped at her. Its fangs tore into her neck, but they weren’t deep enough to do any real damage. With the grace of a sick, elderly bird Willow slammed the creature against the door frame, knocking it off. She tried to stomp on its head, but it had managed to get to its hooves far quicker than intended.
It lunged, Willow dodged, and I found myself clotheslining the disgusting thing. It got pinned to the ground under my hooves, one holding its head so it couldn’t sink its teeth into my flesh. A couple of blasts from the novasurge to its chest region, and then a shot to the brain with the semi-auto put left made the shifter a non-threat. It wasn’t dead yet, convulsing wildly on the floor like a fish, but I had wasted enough ammo on these things. They were proving to be everywhere in the facility.
Whoever had told Bone Breaker this place would have talismans needed a bullet put in them, because so far it had been more risk than reward. The upper facilities had been completely gutted, labs to conference rooms to offices missing nothing but what was too big or useless to carry. Even if there was something that could be useful it was either used, broken, or a shifter waiting eagerly for its next meal to arrive. They were starving too, because as soon as either Willow or I stepped in their line of sight they flung themselves at us. A far cry from the more stealthy ones back at the station.
All of this to say that, just like every other room in this damn building, the one we had just opened had been ransacked of anything useful. I held in the urge to yell, taking the magazine out of the semi-auto to count how many rounds I had left. The answer was twelve, the place so filled with those shifters I had chewed through ammo like a new recruit. The novasurge was fairing similarly, the charge on its battery nearing zero.
“She sent us to die, didn’t she?” Willow asked, picking up on what I had figured out a decent amount of time ago.
“Yep. Must have thought we were bigger threats than was worth keeping alive,” I said, putting the magazine back in the semi auto. I started checking the drawers, knowing I was gonna find nothing. “Which means Sharpshot….”
“Is gonna shoot up all of Sandstone,” Willow said, her words filled with exhaustion. “Why does it always end up like this for us?”
“This isn’t the first time he has done something like this?”
“He’s a wonderful pony. Difficult, but wonderful. He would journey from Manehattan to the farthest corner of Zebrica if it meant keeping me safe.” She shook her head. “He’s also the exact thing he hates most in a pony: spiteful. You punch him, he’ll remember it for the next two years and throw an even harder one back.”
I turned to the alicorn, tilting my head. “I’m surprised you aren’t concerned he might die.”
Willow looked back at me, doing her best to smile. “We wouldn’t be alive this long, with half the wasteland wanting us dead, if he wasn’t beyond exceptional. He got the name “Sharpshot” for a reason.”
I nodded and turned my attention back to searching for anything that looked vaguely like a talisman. Every draw was overturned, every shelf ripped apart in desperation to find the one thing other ponies missed. It was fruitless, and as pointless as this entire endeavor. We were trading bullets for air, and getting jack shit for our effort.
“Nothing here again. Please tell me you’re having more luck then I am.”
The alicorn shook her head, and the scream I had been holding in found its chance. I slammed my hooves into a nearby countertop, question why the fuck I was doing this. We didn’t have time to be searching for something I didn’t care about. Angel Hair was out there, she knew I was following her, and it was more than likely any trail Gemini had would be too cold now. Consequences be damned, I needed to scream.
A scream that was responded with a loud, horrific screech. The sound of hooves and the near-rabid howling of something clearly not a pony caught my ears. I had just alerted a shifter, possibly more than one of them, without thinking. Another roar of emotion found its way out of my throat.
“Rhapsody?”
“Not! Now!”
Barely anything had really happened, and I was seeing red. In both blind anger and uncontrollable stupidity, I found the closest item to me and hurled it as far as I could. The item in question was a rickety wooden stool, a loud crack reverberating through the room as one of the legs snapped off. Willow had decided to make herself small, which made her more around my height given her size, and watched as I looked at what I did yet again.
That time it wasn’t Sharpshot or Willow who had gotten an over reaction out of me, but myself. The second time in two days. I wanted to calm down but the sound of hooves getting closer told me that wasn’t going to happen. The shifters were starving, and they had heard a meal.
It was only one, but Gold had made these things dangerous enough. Its charge did nothing but fuel the anger I had lit inside my own heart, and without thinking I dumped five shots into it. It was only when it fell to the floor, dead, that I realized I had used three shots too many. All I needed was one or two shots to the head, but instead I had wasted nearly half of the remaining bullets I had for my semi auto. I wasn’t acting like a soldier, and I needed to get my head in gear.
Just like when I had stepped outside yesterday, I performed a simple but effective breathing technique. Inhale for three seconds, hold for one, and then a slow exhale over the course of five seconds. I repeated it a few times, watching the doorway just in case anything else came traipsing in looking for food.
“Singing, are you okay?” Willow asked. I nodded without thinking, watching both my vision and the E.F.S. for any sign of movement. “You… you kind of reminded me of somepony for a second.”
“Sharpshot said something similar,” I replied. There was no red, which likely meant no other shifters had been attracted. “Hard to imagine Star Chart would be that hot headed if she was a hero.”
“So he wasn’t lying about you having family connections to her,” She replied, walking up to me hesitantly. “Though, uh, Star wasn’t the one I was talking about. It was a different pony. A unicorn called Dead Hooves.”
I blinked and turned to her, the dreams I had had last night so far in the back of my mind they were practically forgotten. The name sounded familiar either way; I could faintly recall Sharpshot mentioning a “Dead” the day prior. It was a rather unfortunate and ironic name, that was certain.
“She was a good pony, even if she wasn’t always the brightest,” Willow explained, smiling brightly. “Had quite a lot of fight in her for a pony without working hind legs, and was really scary when angry. She was my first real friend,” I couldn’t tell if the few tears in Willow’s eyes were from her throat pain or her looking back on her life. “and I could appreciate how she spoke her mind. Not many ponies have ever been as honest as her.”
Something moved out of the corner of my eye, and turning to look at it I saw a… blob, next to Willow. It was meant to be a pony, I think, with tan fur and some shades of red and black I can only assume was her mane and tail. It was entirely possible the black and tan were mixed around, however. Trying to discern what I was seeing felt like looking through glasses that weren’t the right prescription.
The strangest part was I could hear a voice. It was like a motherly version of the kind that haunted me at night.
“You give me too much credit, Willow,” it said. There was no malice, no hate. There was sadness, but there was a lot more happiness too. “A better mare wouldn’t make the same mistakes I have.”
I watched the blob until my eyes needed to blink, that simple motion causing it to dissipate from existence. I looked back up to Willow, and then to the doorway. I motioned for her to follow me, and we made our way out of this specific lab. I had no idea how many of these we had gone through so far, but it was probably best we gave Sharpshot time to clean up the mess he was no doubt making back in Sandstone.
“How did you two meet? Dead Hooves and you, I mean. Not Sharpshot.”
“Somepony tried to frame her for the murders my old owner and I committed,” Willow explained. My hooves stopped moving for a second, her words earning a look of shock from me. “When you have ponies who are willing to put caps out for your head, it’s gonna happen. I was there too, actually, but whoever had captured her had convinced those who had taken me that I wasn’t responsible.” She shrugged. “Idiotic, but saved my life. Could have left her to die but I had killed so many for no reason. I wanted to save just one life.”
I gave her a look that lied somewhere between disappointed and worried. “Please don’t tell me it’s common for friends to meet via near death experiences down here.”
“That’s how it usually goes,” the alicorn answered, nodding. I could tell she was holding in a giggle. “Trust me if you think that was bad, Sharpshot was even worse. Though instead of him nearly killing us we nearly killed him.”
I regretted asking about Dead Hooves, having been firmly reminded of how backwards the wasteland was. I’m pretty sure the ministry mares would be rolling in their graves after hearing such an answer. Even excusing them, a civilized society would probably have their collective jaws dropped at admitting such a thing.
Then again, civilized was probably not the right word to use to describe the surface. I learned that yesterday.
Instead of another lab, we had made our way around back to the M.A.S hub’s entrance. We both let out a sigh, the thoughts of everything we had just done being pointless filling our souls. All that time, ammo, and searching had been nothing but a waste of time. I did my best to hold in my anger, knowing it would do nothing.
“If it was just me, I would understand using this place to off me,” I said, walking out into the middle of the room. My eyes looked up, noting that the roof of the building had been made in such a way where a star could be seen on the top of the room. “With you, however, it doesn’t make any sense. She knows how tough you alicorns are, right?”
Willow gave a reluctant nod. “It doesn’t matter. As long as she knows that… dang word, I’m pudding in her hooves. She probably allowed me to tag along to make it seem….”
The lights over the main counter suddenly turned on, drawing us away from conversation. I dropped into a ready stance, both guns aimed in the direction of the lights while Willow jumped several feet into the air. She stayed up there, flapping her wings as we checked around us for what – or who – had turned them on. The building had seemed long without power; it hadn’t responded to the flicking of a light switch. My ear twitched as a sound greeted my ears, one I recognized from my time among the Enclave council. A terminal had just received a message.
Somepony else was there, on a different floor. That was the only answer I could come up with for the front terminal receiving a message. I did one more scan around me, looking for anything that could be hostile. I then did a second with extra attention paid to my E.F.S., but the only dot belonged to Willow Wisp, which was yellow.. Nopony but us was present, meaning that merely approaching the terminal would likely be safe. The question lied in what would happen after that.
“Willow, go invisible and keep to the air,” I told her. “If I touch that terminal and something bad happens, either get out of the way or take out whatever hits me.”
She nodded, lit her horn, and she was gone. If she had moved from her spot by then I had no idea, but that wasn’t the important thing. With careful steps, I walked over to the terminal. My eyes scanned around me for anything that could be taken as hostile, but all I got was dark metal walls. That hadn’t changed with the lights coming on; the outside of this building probably baked like it was on top of a volcano.
When I finally did reach my destination, I did a once over of the room one more time just to make extra sure there wasn’t an obvious trap. Nothing showed itself, so I turned to the monitor. I froze up, the sight before me far beyond normal for any terminal I had seen. Large digital letters filled the screen, but the problem wasn’t that the formatting was off. It was what the letters said.
> Hello, Lieutenant Colonel Singing Rhapsody.
>
> It is great to finally meet you.
It knew me. It, no, this pony had seen me at some point during Willow and I’s escapade through the hub’s ground floor. No, that was still wrong, because the word “finally” meant something more. My stomach twisted, and I bit my lower lip to hold back a swear that wished to grace the world. It wasn’t hard to figure out who, given the city we were in and the ponies who controlled it.
“The Invisible Mare,” I whispered. I had hoped that they couldn’t hear me, but the words on screen changed. I couldn’t help but feel that it was just to spite me.
> Lucky Heart will be just fine. I’ve been waiting a long time for this conversation, and I would like to think we can be friends. That is, if you can deal with the knowledge it was a ten year old foal that caused you so much trouble, five years ago.
I wasn’t sure whether to call her a cocky little shit or dig my teeth even further into my lip. I decided on the latter, taking a step away from the terminal. The Invisible Mare was talking to me, taunting me, and yet there was no hostility in the words she typed. There was something about the name they had given me, Lucky Heart, that led me to pause and think. It took me all too long to realize the connection: Gold had said he was visiting somepony with that name.
The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
The MentaBuck’s heads-up display became more clear when thinking about that griffon, or more precisely what he had done to me. I should have made the connection when Bone Breaker told me about Stable 71, but I didn’t. After all, the chances of them being the same pony couldn’t be that high… right?
“What do you want? Why have you contacted me?”
> Tell your alicorn companion to become visible and I’ll explain. Be assured, you are not in any danger. Quite the opposite, in fact. I want to keep you out of further harm.
“Willow!”
“Right next to you,” the alicorn replied, reappearing right at my side. I stammered to the side in surprise, watching her face go red in embarrassment. “Sorry. I should have thought that out a bit better than I did.”
“Just don’t do it so close next time,” I told her. She gave an understanding nod, only getting more embarrassed. I turned back to the terminal. “Okay, so you’re gonna explain shit now, right?”
> I think I should first apologize. I am sure that I didn’t make the greatest first impression, or rather my dear friend didn’t. Trust me when I say I would prefer to do this all face to face but I can’t. Not anymore. I can’t leave the tower, now that I’m connected to it.
My eyes went wide, and my neck looked in the direction I believed the S.P.P. Tower to be in. “You’re connected to it?”
I felt dumb mimicking what I had just been told, but hearing where Lucky was shocked my system. Even ignoring her, the question of how these grounders had managed to take the tower for themselves. For my family’s sake I needed to find out just how much of a threat this foal was; how much of a threat ArcanaTech was. If she was willing to tell me, then I could relay it to Ironsight and the Enclave could take preventative measures.
> I am. I have been since Gold and I brought ArcanaTech to our hooves. The tower was never finished before balefire touched Trotson, ArcanaTech finished it, and have used it to keep the city. I can assure you that I am of no harm to the Grand Pegasus Enclave. I already have enough on my hooves making Equestria’s greatest remaining minds out of their own incestuous pit, and I can’t connect to any other towers.
>
> I can explain everything better once we can chat voice to voice. The elevator is operational, take it into Project Nebula labs. Feel free to take what you want, as an apology, but stay in the rooms with lights. Nebula ghouls are indestructible, don’t fight them. I’ll be waiting for you.
The terminal turned itself off, and the sound of a mechanical door brought Willow’s and I’s attention to right behind us. With a will of its own, the lifeless elevator that had been behind us both opened its doors for us. I saw Willow to a different, far more intentional gulp. One not born of pain, but of fear. That pain was similarly formed not out of the possible dangers that awaited below, but of the cramped space that would be our travel there.
“I-is there a stairway we can go down? Or perhaps some outside entrance?” She asked me. I wasn’t aware a pony could stutter in telepathy till then. I gave her a deadpan look, hiding that I was feeling just as uncomfortable with the space in question. “We have no choice, do we?”
“No, we don’t,” I told her. “Something tells me the unicorns of the M.A.S. weren’t expecting pegasi to go down there.”
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They definitely hadn’t expected pegasi to use the elevator, nopony ever did.
The entire elevator ride down was a battle for the tiniest of wing space, leading to my belief it was stupidly made for only one pony. That or they hadn’t expected an alicorn to go down the elevator with them, which was just as likely. Willow’s wings draped over me once or twice, blocking my vision while I was stuck with no way to stretch my wings. I didn’t even know I needed to do that until the elevator started moving.
With a ding, the elevator stopped its descent and opened up for us. Willow immediately ran out into the heavy darkness before us. I took a few steady breaths in the elevator before following her out, my arrival signaling the lights to turn on. The silence of the world around us was heavier, the air thinner too, and the echo more oppressive than ever. Before the open space known as “outside” wasn’t that far away, but now it was one heavily claustrophobic ride up. This place – this lab – smelled like a pegasi’s worst nightmare.
I looked around myself to the room we had entered, though it was more a hallway than anything else. Our only options were left or right, but only the latter’s lights had been turned on by Lucky Heart. Before us was a window, but we couldn’t see what lay on the other side; the lights of whatever room it was looking into were off.
I briefly entertained going down the left hallway, but the Invisible Mare had been clear about sticking to the lights. I motioned Willow to follow behind me, and we started our way down, refusing to allow curiosity to bring me off the light’s path. It was boring, yes, but after dealing with all the shifters on the top floor it was a wonderful change. It was only when we reached the end of the hallway that we reached the lab proper.
One of the labs, anyway.
The first thing that hit me was the heavy mess that made up the lab, this area clearly nowhere near as heavily overturned as those on the ground floors. Several more thick glass windows looking into dark rooms, a single door left darkened by a lack of light to the side. Willow walked past me, eyes on what looked to be a far less bulky terminal not too far away.
“What do you think they were working on down here?”
“No clue, and it isn’t important. This technology never saw the public eye,” I told her, eyes scanning every inch it could. Despite what I had said, I was also interested in what the M.A.S was working on here. “Must have been something to do with the stars, given they called it Project Nebula.”
“Were they planning to try and enter space or so– holy crap,” I turned to Willow, watching her jaw drop as she stared into a terminal. “It’s… the colors… how did they do this?”
“Willow?”
“It’s not just green. I-It's not just green. Sweet Celestia, the screen isn’t just green!” she said, her hooves unable to stay still. The alicorn turned to me in excitement. “Singing, it isn’t just green! It’s got blues and whites and other colors too.”
I gave her a questioning look as I walked over, eyes on the grounder the entire time. Even as I had to crane my neck up slightly from being right under her, my eyes didn’t stray. When I finally did turn away, I found myself put into a trance, body locking up as the terminal’s immediate oddities.
Willow wasn’t joking; the terminal had colors!
It was still just a terminal, yes, but from it being thinner and the rainbow showcase it was doing I couldn’t help but find myself slightly entranced. Whatever they had been working on, I could somehow tell this was a display of it. The very first message was a show of that, simply saying “HELLO WORLD” both as its title and content. I have no idea where they were gonna go with it all, but I couldn’t deny that it was rather pretty.
That simple message was not the only thing on the terminal, however. There were several entries on it too, spanning past what we knew as the last day. It would be a bit of a pain to read with all the rainbow waves of colors, but it could be done. Lucky Heart never gave us an exact time to meet her, and she had said we would be fine as long as we didn’t enter any areas she didn’t light up.
So I started with the first real entry that was on the terminal.
> Entry 2
>
> We did it! We actually did it!
>
> When we received this assignment from Minister Twilight and Princess Luna the idea was only a pipe dream. We all knew why this was asked of us, and we all knew that it could make the energy of the future so much safer, but none of us actually imagined we would succeed. Yet here we are, months later after perfecting our first pressure reactor, having managed to somehow make it small enough to power this simple terminal!
>
> Equestria is close to having the power of a dying star in its very hooves. With just more testing, fine tuning, and experimentation, we can make ourselves a future without balefire energy. A future where magical radiation isn’t a constant worry to have in the standard household. It might even help turn the tides of this war.
>
> In fact, I’ve heard a division has already been given the okay by both Minister Twilight and the princess to start work on a megaspell.
Whoever had made that first entry, that was the only one by them. From the next entry onward, a different and far less impressed individual took over.
> Entry 3
>
> Since nopony is using this for anything else anymore, I figured I would use it to share my grievances.
>
> I’m ecstatic that I was assigned to this, don’t get me wrong, but some of these ponies are playing around more than they should. All this talk of different things they could do with black hole energy, of the applications it can be used for are intriguing, but some have gotten horrible distracted. We aren’t meant to be toying with the fabric of dying stars, we are supposed to be developing a new energy system.
>
> For example, a few of the scientists here talked about using it for a firearms platform. That isn’t what we should be focusing on right now! Yes, perhaps after we showcase the pressure reactor to the public we can think of the military power it can have, but nopony is focused on that. Everypony is more interested in pursuing their own little personal projects to be focusing on the major event coming up.
>
> This must have been why I was put in charge. Twilight, you won’t be let down.
> Entry 4
>
> It’s gone. Everything above us is… everypony is gone!
>
> We only felt the tremor the megaspell caused when it hit Trotson. Nopony down here was hurt, but one of the older, larger pressure reactors was damaged by being left in a less than safe place. We sent a few up to check and see what happened but they didn’t come back down. They managed to send us a message saying that above ground was too radioactive, and that this was the only safe place.
>
> Today was one of the first days of my life where I found myself thinking about more than the big project I was working on. I found myself thinking of other ponies. It was… I think it was two days ago we sent those ponies up now to look at what had happened above? I’m not sure. I let two brilliant, still living ponies get themselves killed for absolutely nothing.
>
> Is anyone else still alive out there somewhere? Did the Stables work? Did some ponies escape the end of the world above ground? So many questions, but the surface is too dangerous. This is my home now, as is the rest of my team.
>
> Minuette, Lemon, Twinkleshine, Twilight, are any of you okay? I know I wasn’t a great friend, if you could even call me that. Heck, none of you probably even remember me. You’re all doing your own things and one of you even runs a ministry! Why am I just now thinking of everything I’ve done wrong? How could I be so stupid?
>
> No, I can’t think like that. These ponies need a leader, and I’m what they got now. I need to figure something, to hopefully keep us alive. To keep ponykind alive.
> Entry 5
>
> Something weird happened today with that old reactor I mentioned. We knew it could possibly be harmful so we locked down the area it was in as soon as we could. It was causing the few geiger counters we had to act weird too, and if anypony gets too close to the door it stays that way. There is no way to explain other than it both is and isn’t giving off radiation at the same exact time. The geiger counter says zero, but it beeps as if there is radiation on the other side.
>
> Then one of our team, Aleph, started to get violently sick. It was like a horrible fever, worse than any I’ve ever seen. We’re doing our best to help him, but who knows if there is anything we can do. There isn’t enough supplies down here to last us that long, we need to find out if the surface is safe or not.
“Ghoulification.”
I looked to Willow, raising my brow at the alicorn’s words. I suppose it shouldn’t have surprised me that she would have figured it out, but it stuck out to me how quickly she had pieced things together. I looked back to the terminal entry, and then to the alicorn once again.
“Glad to say I don’t know how it works. Sounds to me like it was just radiation sickness. Couldn’t that be what we are hearing about?”
“That is also possible,” She answered, nodding her head to me. “Yet she said it wasn’t irradiated… or that it was and wasn’t at the same time. I don’t think they would have absorbed enough to get radiation sickness, but that would probably mean it wasn’t enough to become a ghoul.” Her words confused me, and I could tell she was becoming less and less sure each moment she spoke. “I… I guess it doesn’t make sense. Only way that much radiation could occur was if a megaspell was set off in here.”
“Which we know they were working on,” I said, biting my lip once again. “This… this doesn’t sound good.”
“No,” Willow admitted as I turned back to the terminal. “It doesn’t.”
> Entry 6
>
> I take back what I said about how the team shouldn’t be playing with black hole energy to make a weapon, it just saved my life.
>
> Whatever happened to Aleph, he wasn’t the only one who got infected. Some of them are still themselves but others… they can’t be called ponies anymore. They look like ponies, but they aren’t ponies. They act more like feral animals, or perhaps monsters is the better term, then what they use to. We didn’t think of it much at first when Aleph was still himself, though he seems practically indestructible now (he personally volunteered for those insane tests we put him through), but the others…
>
> They started attacking ponies, killing ponies, and then eating them. We locked a few of them in but didn’t have the same luck with others. Then Junction came in with this laser rifle which literally ripped right through one! It gave us time to get some ponies up to the surface – because dying up there seemed like a better idea than dying down here – but it broke. Prototypes I tell you.
>
> Though maybe it is for the best, considering he had called it the “Spaghetti Gun.” Apt, but it sounds dumb.
>
> We’re gonna try and find someplace safe above, assuming we don’t die immediately. Maybe we’ll try and take the unfinished tower near the city’s center. If anypony sees this, leave immediately. These labs are too dangerous. Do not open any doors, and if you are stupid enough to risk your life, don’t fight the infected. You won’t do anything.
>
> We couldn’t do anything.
That was the last entry.
I looked away from the terminal and towards one of the nearby windows, taking everything into account. It was exceptionally clear these idiots had been playing with things they should have, and paid the price for it. Whoever wrote the entry had described a ghoul in some aspects, but not one born from balefire. Balefire ghouls were most certainly not indestructible.
Believing the glass was more than enough to hold whatever was inside back, I rapped my hoof on the window as if it was a door. I watched the darkness closely, waiting for something to approach and try to lunge at me. A few seconds turned into a minute, and nothing happened. Willow, having grown curious at it all, proceeded to follow my example and knock on the window. Hers were a significant amount more forceful, but we still seemed to be getting nothing.
“Perhaps something cl–”
Thud!
Willow jumped and screamed, only to then groan in pain as her head hit the lab’s ceiling. My eyes were not on the grounder who had stupidly hurt themselves, but on the creature that had slammed itself against the window. It could be called a pony in some ways, given its general shape, the fact it had hooves, and the fact it had clearly once been a pony. It even still had its horn, though the jury would remain our own if it knew how to use it.
It was not, however, what I would consider a pony anymore. The intelligence that had once been its eyes had long since faded away, leaving nothing but an animalistic shell behind. A shell that seemed made out of skin far smoother and shinier than any ghoul I had ever seen in my life. It screeched at me, and if I hadn’t had this window in front of me I would have probably been terrified.
“What is it?”
“A ghoul, even if not like any that have ever seen above,” I said, having not been paying attention enough to realize it wasn’t Willow who had spoken. I turned to the alicorn, a small smile on my face. “Seems you were right.”
“Why does being right feel more like a throbbing pain in the head than a victory?” She asked in rhetorical lack of amusement. “Do you really think it is indestructible?”
“Are you feeling lucky enough to find out?”
“Yes!”
“I think I would prefer not to, thank you very much.”
My eyes went wide, realizing that the first voice I heard had been the same one I had heard talking to Willow earlier. I looked around myself, only to notice that same blob of tan, black, and red floating over towards the darkened door. I didn’t care if I was possibly going crazy, I knew what it was about to do and I felt a drive to stop it.
Without explanation, I dove forward and tried to grab the pony-shaped ethereal blob. They passed through my hooves, and I hit the floor hard. Ignoring the discomfort in my jaw, I tried to grab what I thought was its tail with my teeth, but it was useless. I couldn’t touch it, though perhaps that was good. It meant that it couldn’t actually open the door.
“Uh, you alright Singing?” Willow asked. I turned back to see her looking at me skeptically. “You kind of just flung yourself into the floor.”
I ground my teeth, realizing I had just heavily embarrassed myself in front of a grounder. I forced a false calm onto my face, standing up and looking at where I had seen the blob. It had disappeared again, which I took to thinking was a good thing.
“You didn’t see it, did you?” I asked. Her brow rose in confusion. “I saw a blob of tan, black, and red. I saw it earlier too, and it was talking to you.” I looked to where it had been, and then back to the alicorn.”I thought you knew they were there.”
Her jaw hung, a look of horror and fear on her face. “Tan… tan, black and… no, it can’t be. She’s been dead for over a century, there is no way it could be her.”
She stumbled back, and then fell onto her rump. Her eyes darted around, as if looking for something that could disprove what I had told her, or what she was feeling deep down. Her wings danced between folding at her side and spreading wide, a small hint at the fullbody discomfort my words had given her. She opened her jaw further, quaking as if she had had something far too cold to eat or drink.
“I-If… if you… are yo–” She tried to speak, only to fall over in a fit of horrid coughs and pained moans. I grimaced, her discomfort having transferred over to myself. To my horror, she tried again. “Deaaad… D-Deaaad H-Hoov…. Hooves. Are… are…”
She coughed again, tears falling from her face as she tried and failed to speak. I went to shout at her to stop, not thinking whatever she was trying to say was worth it, but froze. The blob appeared again, though it was not heading towards the door anymore. It walked over to Willow, who was still writhing in pain as desperately tried to speak. I didn’t know why, but as the blob turned from the alicorn to me, I realized that it knew.
“You can see me, right?” It asked me. I took a step backwards for my own safety, pointing my gun at it despite knowing it wouldn’t work. “Tell her to stop attempting to speak for me. It hurts seeing my old friend like this.”
Old… friend?
I wanted to call what I was seeing some surface-made delusion, but I couldn’t think of anything that had the power to make illusions. So instead I focused on the blob, doing my best to try and discern what it really looked like. I didn’t actually expect it to do much, but to my surprise the mists that seemed to cover their true self parted away, allowing me to see what I was really talking to. I felt my heart sting at the sight.
Before me was a grounder, a unicorn, with a look of longing and desperation in her eyes. Her light tan fur was see through, as was the black and red mane and tail that made up the rest of her. She seemed unsteady on her legs, as if any moment they would collapse out from underneath her. Most suprising of all, she lacks a cutie mark.
“I… I know you’re confused. Trust me, knowing somepony can actually see me is… I never thought it would happen,” she said, walking forward. I couldn’t help but notice how her front hooves were the only ones that moved; her back ones sat as still as a pony in a photograph. “We can discuss this all later, though. Please tell her to stop calling out for me.”
“To stop calling out for…,” I didn’t need to finish my statement, because it had become painfully clear who this must have been before me. “Dead Hooves?”
The mare or ghost or whatever she was gave me a nod. I looked to Willow, and then back to her.
“Willow, Dead Hooves says to stop,” I said, voice monotone as my brain scrambled to figure out what was going on. The alicorn did as I asked, though not before a gasp came out of her muzzle. “She…she’s here somehow. I can see her.”
“Wh-what?” She asked, even her mind’s voice sounding as if it was still on the verge of tears. “How? Sh-she’s dead.”
“I don’t know Willow. I don’t know how I’m still here,” Dead Hooves replied, laying down in front of her friend. Horn touched horn, the dead mare’s eyes closed as her lips found themselves stuck unable to decide whether to smile or scowl. That touch, while I doubt Willow could truly feel it, caused the alicorn to calm down and look in Dead’s direction. “I think I’m somewhere in between. I didn’t think anypony could see me until today.”
I took another few steps back as it finally hit me what I was seeing. This pony hadn’t been alive for decades, possible tagging along with her old friends the entire time and neither of them knew. She was correct; nopony should have been able to see her. Seeing the dead wasn’t a normal thing. Yet here I was, looking at a dead mare.
This was all too much. My head was spinning and I needed to sit down.
“Lucky, if you’re listening, we’re gonna need to stop for a second,” I said, walking back in the direction I had come from. “The surface is making me see things.”
----------------------------------------
I wasn’t entirely sure how long I had sat in that hallway, looking up at the fluorescent lights. All I knew was that I had been given a few, comfortable minutes of wonderful silence. Silence that I desperately needed, because my head hadn’t stopped spinning since… I’m not sure. It had started sometime after reading the terminal entries, but that was all I could put together. Either way I needed it, and I doubted a certain metal ball would be able to find me down here.
My brain had too many questions, and absolutely no answers for any of them. The oddities and strange occurrences were starting to get a bit too much with this damn building, and if it wasn't the Invisible Mare herself I would have turned and walked right back out the building. I could take terminals with more than one color, unusual ghouls, and fillies with more power than usual in their hooves. Seeing the dead was a whole different matter.
Seeing the dead. How in tartarus was I doing that?
Didn’t matter how many times I stated it to myself, or how much I tried to explain. The simple idea that I, a pegasus, was able to see and talk with dead ponies left me confused, put off, and disturbed. It didn’t matter that it was a grounder; this kind of shit shouldn’t be possible! Had I been able to do this my entire life and it had taken me over thirty-six years to realize it? Were there ponies I considered friends who were not really alive?
The screams that I heard, when the world shut my trauma out, were they more than just the manifestation of one mare’s damaged psyche? I didn’t know, and couldn’t answer.
I’m not sure what Willow Wisp and Dead Hooves did in the laboratory. The two couldn’t exactly talk to each other in a manner befitting a conversation, but perhaps that was for the best. Willow needed to rest up, especially since Sharpshot was the pony with the cloud nine on them; aggravating her throat wasn’t gonna do her any good.
I’m not sure how long it was until a pony came talking to me, but like with Watcher I heard their voice before I saw their face.
“Um… excuse,” they said. I looked at them, silently swearing as I saw the ethereal form of Dead Hooves next to me. “Singing Rhapsody, right? Willow is ready to get moving again, she’s just waiting for you.”
I stared at the ghost for a couple of seconds, and then turned my attention to the wall. “I’ll let her come get me. It’s you and the surface’s fault that my head is hurting, after all.”
“Oh yeah, sure, it’s my fault. Totally mine,” She replied sarcastically. She sounded nearly as cocky as Sharpshot did. “And you aren’t getting rid of me. Where Willow and that jackass goes, I go.”
“Your opinion of her husband isn’t that high?” I asked. Given how young the pony before me looked, it was a lot easier to cast aside my anger. She must have been in her late teens when she died.
“Sharpshot is an asshat, you know that just as much as I do,” Dead Hooves replied, sitting down on the opposite wall from me. I snorted in amusement, because she was right. “I don’t exactly approve of them, but there ain’t anything I can do about it on account of me being as dead as my name suggests.” She looked as if she had started to chew on something horribly sour. “Possibly could have stopped them from choosing to make Willow a fucking alicorn. What were they thinking?”
I couldn’t place it, but hearing this dead mare speak felt… comfortable for me, like I was talking to a friend I never knew. She was still a grounder, and the mere fact I could talk to the dead put me on edge, but there was something about her that felt different. She seemed more sensible, more understanding, perhaps even a bit smarter than the rest of the ponies around me.
“Ponies will do absurd things to stay with the ones they love sometimes. You ask me those are the type of relationships you need to be most careful of,” I told Dead Hooves, swirling my hoof around in a circle motion. “That's a dangerous type of love. Sure, going far for your loved ones is important but there are cases where it can be a bit… extreme. I feel like that is the situation we are dealing with.”
“Exactly! You get it!” Dead Hooves exclaimed. She clapped her hooves together, but they made zero noise. Her eyes then darted to the floor. “I mean, they do both seem to love each other, and I do approve of Sharpshot trying to stick up for Willow, but he has made her life so much harder. I think it would have been easier on them both if the killing joke had managed to actually kill her, though saying that makes me sick.”
“It’s a tough situation. Like a mother having a child she doesn’t love, but wants to raise right,” I said. The dead grounder nodded at me. “I know some pegasi back home that deal with stuff like that. It sucks, but you can’t get rid of all the bad.”
Dead Hooves gave a nod, but her eyes refused to meet my own. We sat there in silence for a time, though only sounds that broke through came from either me shifting wear I sat or the occasional movement of my tail. It was the ghost that broke the silence.
“You have somepony you need to talk to, right? Somepony important?” Dead Hooves asked. “It would probably be best if you got moving then.”
“Yeah, probably,” I admitted, getting to my hooves. I started to walk back towards the lab, only to stop and look at Dead Hooves. Unlike every other time I had broken eye contact with her, she was still there. “I guess we'll be seeing a lot of each other. Just don’t get in the way too much.”
“I won’t. Don’t worry,” She replied. Then, much to my surprise, she gave me a salute. “Glory to the Grand Pegasus Enclave, Miss Rhapsody.”
My eyes went wide at her action, because none of it was in mockery. This grounder actually meant it! I wanted to ask where she got the salute from, but she vanished from view as if she wasn’t there in the first place. I stared at where she had been, as if it would somehow give me anything resembling an answer.
“Uh, right back at you,” I said. I wasn’t sure if Dead Hooves was actually there anymore, but the subconscious urge to salute hit me. I gave in to that urge, but where the ghost had done it with her hooves I more accurately did it with my wings. “Glory to the Grand Pegasus Enclave.”